Surrealism

Surrealism

Pure Psychic Automatism, proposing to express either verbally, in writing or any other manner, the real functioning of thought.

Surrealism originated in the late 1910s and early ’20s as a literary movement – Still important today

Automatism

Suspension of the conscious mind to release unconscious images

Who and what influenced surrealism and what did they believe in?

Freud and Marx

Belief in the Importance of Dreams

The horrors of World War I were the logical conclusion of the Industrial Revolution and the Rational Mind.

• Dream States were the natural remedy or solution

Fostered by DADAism

Salvador Dali (1904-1989)

Spanish

Considered one of the most important painters of the 20th century

Accomplished sculptor, filmmaker, and photographer

Friends with Picasso, Schiaparelli, and Miró

Depicted his own psychological conflicts and phobias in his art, the liberation of the individual self and society.

Salvadore Dali, Daddy Longlegs of the Evening - Hope!, 1940

Salvadore Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931

Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights, c. 1503–1515

Characterstics of surrealism

• Repostion surrealism as more dynamic

• International, but understanding has been from a western POV

• Reconsider it from a wider focus/redefine

• Has roots in WWI and Freud

• Brenton wrote first works on surrealism

• Dream is a tool to “unlock” the subconsious

• Questioned machinary and real meaning of art

• Challange colonialism and racial disjustice

Elsa Schiaparelli

Knwon for her orginality at the time, new textures, wearing structures, unorthodox colors, used Gestalt principles of perception.

The Skeleton Dress, designed by Schaparielli in collabration with Dali for her 1938 collection Le Cirque

Leonor Fini

Was a fiercely independent Argentine-Italian artist, painter, illustrator, and designer known for her powerful depictions of mythical, erotic, and androgynous figures, often blending women with sphinxes or other creatures.

Leonor Fini, Two Women, 1939

Leonor Fini, Portrait of a woman with acanthus leaves, 1946

Leonor Fini, Self Portrait with Scorpion, 1938

Leonora Carrington

Mary Leonora Carrington was a British and Mexican Surrealist painter and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City and was one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s. Carrington was also a founding member of the women's liberation movement in Mexico during the 1970s.

Leonora Carrington

And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur

1953

MoMA, NYC

Operation Wednesday (1969) by Leonora Carrington

Frida Kahlo

She was a Mexican painter known for her self-portraits and works inspired by Mexican nature and artifacts. Bucked conventions of beauty and self-expression.

Frida Kahlo,

The Two Fridas (Las dos Fridas)

1939

oil on canvas, 67-11/16 x 67-

11/16″

(Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City)

Kay Sage

Painting often conveys an idea of desolation and isolation.

Rene Margritte (1898 ~ 1967)

• Belgian

• Poster/advertisement designer

• One of the most influential painters of the 20th Century.

• Juxtaposed ordinary objects in an unusual context

Man in a Bowler Hat, 1964, Rene Margritte

70×50 cm oil on canvas

Personal Values, 1952 by Rene Magritte

Time Transfixed (1939) by Rene Magritte

René Magritte, The Masterpiece or the Mysteries of the Horizon

The Empire of Light II, 1950, oil on canvas, 31 x 39" (78.8 x 99.1

cm). MOMA NYC, Rene Margritte

Max Ernst (1891 ~ 1976)

German

• Associated with Surrealism, Dadaism and Abstract Expressionism

Max Ernst

Woman, Old Man, and Flower

Max Ernst (German, 1891-1976)

The Robing of the Bride

1940

Oil on canvas

129.6 x 96.3cm

Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York

Joan Miró

1893 ~ 1983

• Spanish

• He was a successful painter, ceramist & sculptor

• Rejected formal membership in any art movement

Max Ernst – The Postman Cheval

Marc Chagall

1887 ~ 1985

• Russian-Jewish

• Painter

• Surrealism, Dadaism, and Abstract Expressionism

- Paris in 1923 and became a French citizen in 1937

• Fled France during WWII to Spain, then to the U.S. in 1941.

I and the Village- Marc Chagall